身着狮皮 (1987)

《身着狮皮》（英语：In the Skin of a Lion）是加拿大小说家迈克尔·翁达杰所著长篇小说，1987年出版，体裁为历史小说，亦是其布克奖得奖作品《英国病人》的前传。

小说以20世纪初的多伦多为背景，透过主人公帕特里克·刘易斯的经历，描写参与城市建设的移民群体。他们亲手修筑桥梁、隧道等基础设施，为城市的发展作出重要贡献，却长期处于社会边缘，其劳动与生活亦鲜少获主流历史记录。该书荣获CBC加拿大阅读奖、安大略图书奖，入围加拿大总督奖。

该书中文版曾分别由译林出版社和上海文艺出版社出版。

In the Skin of a Lion is a novel by Canadian–Sri Lankan writer Michael Ondaatje published in 1987 by McClelland and Stewart. The novel fictionalizes the lives of the immigrants who played a large role in the building of the city of Toronto in the early 1900s, but whose contributions never became part of the city's official history.

Ondaatje illuminates the investment of these settlers in Canada, through their labour, while they remain outsiders to mainstream society. The novel began as a story about the 1919 disappearance of the Canadian theater magnate Ambrose Small, but Ondaatje decided to expand the story "to create a panoramic vision of the modern immigrant experience". In doing so, Ondaatje touched upon a number of flashpoints in early 20th century Canadian history, including the Toronto Police Department's Red Squad raids and the murder of Finnish labour organizers Viljo Rosvall and Janne Voutilainen. As he wrote, Ondaatje studied the archival collections of the City of Toronto as well as local newspapers. The narrative revolves around the construction of two Toronto landmarks: the Bloor Street Viaduct and the R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant. The novel's title is taken from a line in The Epic of Gilgamesh, following the death of Enkidu: "I will let my hair grow long for your sake, I will wander through the wilderness in the skin of a lion."

The book was nominated for the Governor General's Award for English Language Fiction in 1987. Ondaatje's more famous 1992 novel, The English Patient, is, in part, a sequel to In the Skin of a Lion, continuing the characters of Hana and Caravaggio as well as revealing the fate of this novel's main character, Patrick Lewis.

Plot summary

Little Seeds

The first chapter, "Little Seeds," describes the growing years of the main character, Patrick Lewis, providing causation for his subsequent actions in the novel. As a young boy in Depot Creek, Ontario, Patrick watches the loggers arrive in town in the winter, work in the mills in the other seasons, and skate on the frozen river. Patrick's father, Hazen Lewis, becomes a dynamiter and is meticulous when washing his clothes each evening to remove remnants of explosives on his apparel. These elements form the foundation of the subsequent narrative: Depot Creek, the loggers skating, learning about dynamite, etc.

The Bridge

"The Bridge" deals with the construction of the Bloor Street Viaduct, which will link eastern Toronto with the centre of the city and will carry traffic, water and electricity across the Don Valley. R.C. Harris, the city's Commissioner of Public Works often visits the bridge at night. One night, five nuns wander onto the unfinished bridge and one falls off. Nicholas Temelcoff, a Macedonian immigrant worker on the bridge, saves the nun who fell off the bridge, dislocating his arm. The nun, already missing her veil, tears her habit to make him a sling. Later, at a bar, he offers her brandy, compliments, and a new lease on life. Temelcoff is a silent man who struggles with English yet they are able to transcend their social and language barriers through the commonality of their scars— his from work, hers from being "always unlucky." This moment is the beginning of the nun's eventual transformation into the character Alice. He eventually falls asleep and wakes to find a doctor treating his arm and the nun gone.